| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Timezone: | CET |
| Utc Offset: | +1 |
| Timezone Dst: | CEST |
| Utc Offset Dst: | +2 |
| Official Name: | Mikepércs |
| Subdivision Type1: | County |
| Subdivision Name1: | Hajdú-Bihar |
| Area Total Km2: | 36.93 |
| Population As Of: | 2015 |
| Population Total: | 3520[1] |
| Population Density Km2: | 121.3 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code |
| Postal Code: | 4271 |
| Area Code: | 52 |
| Leader Name: | Timár Zoltán |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Party: | Fidesz / KDNP |
Mikepércs is a village in Hajdú-Bihar county, in the Northern Great Plain region of eastern Hungary.
It covers an area of 36.930NaN0 and has a population of 4,480 people (2015).[1]
As part of Hungarian president Viktor Orbán's 2010 "Eastern Opening" policy of economic realignment towards China and Russia, on 12August 2022, Chinese battery manufacturer CATL announced it would construct a USD$7.8billion, 100GWh battery factory on 221hectares of land located in the Southern Economic Zone in Debrecen;[2] the project was hailed by Hungary's governing Fidesz party as the biggest foreign investment in the nation's history, and the factory would be the largest of its kind in Europe.[3]
However, residents began to protest as construction began, sparked in late 2022 by a street protest organised by a group of local women. At two public hearings regarding the project, townspeople started fights and shouted at government officials, calling them traitors a reporter for local newspaper Debreciner described "hundreds of people yelling and fighting".[3] Mikepércs' mayor Timár Zoltán announced he was also opposed to the project, despite being a member of Fidesz himself; similarly, György Matolcsy, the governor of the Hungarian National Bank, also came out against the factory.[4]
Residents are concerned about pollution, property values, and unemployment. Zoltán told the New York Times that CATL had told him it was "too busy" to send a representative to a town-hall meeting.[3] In response, Fidesz has blamed George Soros for fomenting protests; Debrecen mayor László Papp blamed "fake information" for the locals' opposition.[3]